Who Remembers Edgar Hodges?

Who bought pads of Oxford paper in the eighties and nineties? Edgar Hodges was the illustrator whose carefully-rendered line drawings of Oxford colleges and buildings graced the covers. I’ve been trying to track down more information about these illustrations without much luck.

The Oxford pads in question were produced by Hunt & Broadhurst Ltd. One of the then-owners, Charles Broadhurst, was an accomplished amateur artist, and produced a series of pen-and-ink views of Oxford. Charles Broadhurst produced at least one collection of his views of Oxford, reproductions of which are available for sale online. His son, John, told me that when Oxford bought out Hunt & Broadhurst Ltd., they “did not want to use my father’s drawings and commissioned some of their own.” The commission appears to have gone to Edgar Hodges.

I’m pretty sure that the Edgar Hodges who produced these architectural illustrations was the same Edgar Hodges who worked on children’s books and annuals in the 1970s and early 1980s. There’s an interview with him on a Thomas the Tank Engine fan site, and his signature on some of those works is identical to the signature on the Oxford pad covers.

Why all this curiosity about Mr. Hodges?

Well, it was his illustrations on those pads which first inspired me to start drawing mediaeval timber-framed buildings and which laid the foundations for a career as an archaeological illustrator. As a result, I’ve always wondered about about Edgar Hodges and his work. A few days ago I was clearing out some old papers and came across some of the graph paper pads with his drawings on the covers and started wondering about him again.

So does anyone else out there remember those A4 pad illustrations by Edgar Hodges? Does anyone out there know more about him?

I used these pads at university (1992-95) – they were sold at the student union shop and I bought them in preference to other ones with shiny, “value” type covers, even though they were a bit pricier. I stil have one of the covers now, and I just noticed – and googled for – the “Hunt and Broadhurst” at the bottom – having a feeling the company would be long defunct.

The drawings were great for “colouring in” using a highlighter or ink pen, during the less scintillating lectures and seminars. Much evidence of that on the one I kept.

During the late 70s and into the 80s – while working as Art Editor for “Purnell Books” – through commissioning him to work on various books, I got to know Edgar Hodges well. In 1985, I left “Purnell” and went freelance to work on Public Relations and Advertising projects. There is a nice interview (as mentioned elsewhere on this site) which has told me much about Edgar Hodges’ earlier life, but I was interested in who “my best pal Joan McCarthy” had been, for in the 80s when I knew Edgar best, he was in search of a wife / partner . . . going so far as to join a “singles” club which I don’t believe was so terribly successful. I seem to think that he took “one female” to Spain for a holiday, and that too hadn’t been all that triumphant.

It was indeed Bolton where he had lived and I had stayed with him overnight on my way up to Loch Tummel (in Scotland) as I had been commissioned to photograph and produce just twenty brochures as part of an appeal against the decision to stop the company mining for basalt (I think it was called) – a heavy metal ingredient that is added to rubber (such as floor-mats in cars) to make them heavier. The incredibly “short run” was solved by getting the repro house to supply an extra number of colour proofs which I then got “my” printer to add a mid-night blue Chromolux cover and bind

I was in Scotland for two or three days before driving back – the road taking me through Lockerby which I passed through about half-an-hour before the Pan-Am Jumbo Jet had crashed into the village causing the mass devastation that it did. Many had been concerned for my safety, but I hadn’t known about it until several hours later when I called my wife saying that I was already on my way back.